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Between Lady Eleanor’s comments about how lovely I look in her necklace—how happy she is to have passed it down to her grandson’s new beloved bride—the queen’s frosty glares, the king’s disinterest, and the scrutinizing looks of my three new sisters-in-law, I’ve never felt quite so much like an animal in a menagerie before.
“Would you like a bit of pork belly, Sweetness?” Remy breaks the latest bout of silence, and my stomach practically growls in response. “I know it’s your favorite.”
I nod eagerly, pasting a smile on my lips for the sake of his family. We have different reasons for selling this lie, but we’re both committed to it.
“Yes, please, Sugarplum,” I reply sweetly, “I’m utterly ravished—I mean, famished.”
Remy shoots me a knowing glance, his mask slipping for a fraction of a second before he cuts into the hog on the middle of the table, placing several strips of the pork on a plate in front of me.
A glance around shows everyone with a sampling of each of the proffered foods—along with healthy servings of a white breakfast wine—and they’re all still breathing. Lowering the likelihood of any of it being poisoned.
Still, I assess the smell and appearance of each bite for signs of tampering before sliding the food past my lips while the rest of the table continues eating and helping themselves to seconds or thirds.
Remy watches me from the corner of his eye, finally leaning closer to me.
“It’s all been tested,” he murmurs under his breath.
Of course it would have been, after Louis. I nod, taking a bite.
I only have a moment to relish the perfectly seasoned bite of the tender pork before the sound of silverware clattering roughly against a plate pulls everyone’s attention toward the queen.
“Francis, a word?” She grits out the question and moves to stand, but Remy shakes his head.
“Mother, anything you have to say, you can say in front of Lady Aika. She is family now, after all.”
Am I the only one who heard the slight strain in his voice at the word family?
Her tawny cheeks redden. “Yes, you rather ensured that, didn’t you, despite—”
Remy cuts her off, his tone even. “For the last time, Mother, that was a joke. Do you really think that this tiny courtier took out all those grown men and thenburned them alive?”
He shakes his head in disbelief, taking a casual sip of his wine.
It’s an effort not to applaud his flawless performance. If I didn’t know damned good and well that he had plucked me from the scene of a fire himself, even I would struggle to remember he knew I was the vigilante.
Not one to be outdone, I clear my throat uncomfortably. “I’m so embarrassed to have caused so much distress. I was too nervous to eat that day…” I flush again, stealing a longing glance at Remy. “And the sake went straight to my head.”
“So you decided to claim being the most violent criminal in the kingdom…as a joke?” Katriane asks pointedly.
I bite my tongue to keep from telling her that the vigilante isn’t even close to the most violent criminal in the kingdom, letting my gaze fall demurely to the floor instead.
Margot, the oldest of the sisters, is the one who speaks up to save me, much to my shock. “It might have been in poor taste, Mother, but it was hardly worth dying over.”
Her hair is on the redder side of auburn—the color of autumn leaves—and her eyes are nearly identical to her brother’s and her mother’s.
“Ifit was a joke,” Katriane says dubiously.
“Well, I hope it wasn’t,” Remy’s grandmother chimes in next to me, her martini glass wobbling precariously in her delicate grasp. “I hope she burnt the whole lot of them.”
A cacophony of sound bursts throughout the room between the sighs of exasperation and fits of laughter.
“It is about time someone did something about all the crime in Bondé,” Grandmère continues, looking pointedly at her son—the king. “The city has gotten out of control.”
“Yes, thank you, Mother.” Jean rubs the bridge of his nose while staring down at his plate as if it will provide an answer to his problems.
“But Grandmère,” Chloé—the middle of the sisters—interjects in a saccharine tone. “Someoneisdoing something about the crime in Bondé. That’s why mother insisted Francis wed, for the stability of the kingdom. And look how well it’s paid off. We are all but swimming in stability.” She gestures around dramatically.
That flair for theatrics must run in the family.
